Why is digital marketing important?

Any type of marketing can help your business thrive. However, digital marketing has become increasingly important because of how accessible digital channels are. In fact, there were 5.45 billion internet users globally as of July 2024.

From social media to text messages, there are many ways to use digital marketing tactics in order to communicate with your target audience. Additionally, digital marketing has minimal upfront costs, making it a cost-effective marketing technique for small businesses.

• B2B clients tend to have longer decision-making processes, and thus longer sales funnels. Relationship-building strategies work better for these clients, whereas B2C customers tend to respond better to short-term offers and messages.
• B2B transactions are usually based on logic and evidence, which is what skilled B2B digital marketers present. B2C content is more likely to be emotionally-based, focusing on making the customer feel good about a purchase.
• B2B decisions tend to need more than 1 person’s input. The marketing materials that best drive these decisions tend to be shareable and downloadable. B2C customers, on the other hand, favor one-on-one connections with a brand.

Of course, there are exceptions to every rule. A B2C company with a high-ticket product, such as a car or computer, might offer more informative and serious content. As a result, your digital marketing strategy always needs to be geared toward your own customer base, whether you’re B2B or B2C.

Take a look at your current audience to create well-informed and targeted online marketing campaigns. Doing so ensures your marketing efforts are effective and you can capture the attention of potential customers.

Types of digital marketing

There are as many specializations within digital marketing as there are ways of interacting using digital media. Here are a few key examples of types of digital marketing tactics.

Search engine optimization

Search engine optimization, or SEO, is technically a marketing tool rather than a form of marketing in itself. It is often called “an art and a science.”

The “science” part of SEO is what’s most important. SEO is a science because it requires you to research and weigh different contributing factors to achieve the highest possible ranking on a search engine results page (SERP).

Today, the most important elements to consider when optimizing a web page for search engines include:

• Quality and uniqueness of content
• Optimization of key elements for the targeted keyword (URL, title tag, H1, sub headlines)
• Level of user engagement (time on page, bounce rate)
• Number and quality of backlinks
• Internal linking

In addition to the elements above, you need to prioritize technical SEO, which is all the back-end components of your site. This includes mobile-friendliness and loading times. Improving your technical SEO can help search engines better navigate and crawl your site.

The strategic use of these factors makes search engine optimization a science, but the unpredictability involved makes it an “art” that often requires experienced SEO professionals.

Ultimately, the goal is to rank at or near the top of the first page of a search engine’s result page or in Google’s AI Overviews. This ensures that those searching for a specific query related to your brand can easily find your products or services. While there are many search engines, digital marketers often focus on Google since it’s a global leader in the search engine market.

Google and other search engines change their algorithm almost constantly, so SEO is a never-ending progress. And your competitors most likely also invest in SEO. What you can do is closely monitor your page’s performance and make adjustments as needed.

Content marketing

As mentioned, the quality of your content is a key component of an optimized page. As a result, SEO is a major factor in content marketing, a strategy based on the distribution of relevant and valuable content to a target audience.

As in any marketing strategy, the goal of content marketing is to attract leads that ultimately convert into customers. But it does so differently than traditional advertising. Instead of enticing prospects with potential value from a product or service, it offers value for free in the form of written material, such as:

• Blog posts
• E-books
• Newsletters
• Video or audio transcripts
• Whitepapers
• Infographics

Content marketing matters, and there are plenty of stats to prove it:

• 84% of consumers expect companies to produce entertaining and helpful content experiences
• 62% of companies that have at least 5,000 employees produce content daily
• 92% of marketers believe that their company values content as an important asset

As effective as content marketing is, it can be tricky. Content marketing writers need to be able to rank highly in search engine results while also engaging people who will read the material, share it, and interact further with the brand. When the content is relevant, it can establish strong relationships throughout the pipeline.

To create effective content that’s highly relevant and engaging, it’s important to identify your audience. Who are you ultimately trying to reach with your content marketing efforts? Once you have a better grasp of your audience, you can determine the type of content you’ll create. You can use many formats of content in your content marketing, including videos, blog posts, printable worksheets, and more.

Regardless of which content you create, it’s a good idea to follow content marketing best practices. This means making content that’s grammatically correct, free of errors, easy to understand, relevant, and interesting. Your content should also funnel readers to the next stage in the pipeline, whether that’s a free consultation with a sales representative or a signup page.

Social media marketing

Social media marketing means driving traffic and brand awareness by engaging people in discussion online. You can use social media marketing to highlight your brand, products, services, culture, and more. With billions of people spending their time engaging on social media platforms, focusing on social media marketing can be worthwhile.

The most popular digital platforms for social media marketing are Facebook, X, and Instagram, with LinkedIn and YouTube not far behind. Ultimately, which social media platforms you use for your business depends on your goals and audience. For example, if you want to find new leads for your FinTech startup, targeting your audience on LinkedIn is a good idea since industry professionals are active on the platform. On the other hand, running social media ads on Instagram may be better for your brand if you run a B2C focused on younger consumers.

Because social media marketing involves active audience participation, it has become a popular way of getting attention. Social media marketing offers built-in engagement metrics, which are extremely useful in helping you to understand how well you’re reaching your audience. You get to decide which types of interactions mean the most to you, whether that means the number of shares, comments, or total clicks to your website.

To create an effective social media marketing strategy, it’s crucial to follow best practices. Here are a few of the most important social media marketing best practices:

• Craft high-quality and engaging content
• Reply to comments and questions in a professional manner
• Create a social media posting schedule
• Post at the right time
• Hire social media managers to support your marketing efforts
• Know your audience and which social media channels they’re most active on

Pay-per-click marketing

Pay-per-click, or PPC, is a form of digital marketing in which you pay a fee every time someone clicks on your digital ads. So, instead of paying a set amount to constantly run targeted ads on online marketing channels, you only pay for the ads individuals interact with. How and when people see your ad is a bit more complicated.

PPC ads are then placed at the top of search engine result pages based on the factors above whenever a person searches for a specific query.

Each PPC campaign has 1 or more target actions that viewers are meant to complete after clicking an ad. These actions are known as conversions, and they can be transactional or non-transactional. Making a purchase is a conversion, but so is a newsletter signup or a call made to your home office.

Whatever you choose as your target conversions, you can track them via your chosen digital marketing channels to see how your campaign is doing.